Hop and Barley

The success of this blog peaked late 2009 when I came runner up at the British Guild of Beer Writers awards. For a very short time I had the idea I might actually get paid for writing about beer. Many people told me this was not an easy thing to manage. Four and a half years later I have come to believe them.

A topic of conversation that has on occasions bothered members of The British Guild of Beer Writers has been the lack of decent periodicals about beer. There are those published by CAMRA, Beer in particular is very good. Other than that there are not many beer-ralated publications that might commission paid beer writing work.

Fuelling the frustration is the disproportionate unbalance there is when it comes to column inches or TV airing when comparing beer with other beverages. I could mention a certain food program, maybe.

The debate rumbles on about how viable a proper beer magazine could be. Some point to the fact that it is expensive to distribute onto news stands. Others think that it would work if only someone would fund such a thing. I've always taken the view that if something is viable, and enough people want it to happen, eventually someone will have a go. If it truly has wings, then it'll fly.

At the weekend I was thrust a copy of a new concept of beer publication called Hop & Barley. A crowd funded project that promises to be a bi-monthly quality volume, with limited advertising so as to not detract from subject matter and delivered direct to your door.

It looks professional. Well designed, and binding and finish¹ done to give a sense of style and quality. There is a good mix of subject matter, including brewery information, event reviews and a beer cooking article.

Hop & Barley looks like a good idea. If successful it should help provide a new and fresh approach to beer publishing. Being a subscription publication it should cut down on that killer distribution cost. It will no doubt provide an outlet for writers to contribute, although I'm not familiar with any in this preview first edition that I have. Perhaps this will be a new wave of writers, younger, fresher and more in tune with the ever changing beer scene.

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¹Perfectly bound, I believe is the term. What do I know? I'm not a publisher. Well, only on-line, and we all know internet writing doesn't count as much a print.

A posh dinner with posh beer

I'm new to this really. I've been writing this blog for just over a year and very much the new kid on the block. It's a bit daunting at first with all these great people I'd read about. I was too late to join in with the Beer Writers dinner last year and anyway I was stuck in an Amsterdam hotel that very evening trying to get to Portland Or, USA, to sample some West Coast USA beer. Anyway, the point is I was already getting a little awe struck by the prospects of getting involved with this prestigious guild that I'd already heard lots about. The dinner and awards ceremony sounded like a very big deal.

In the intervening year I had built up more and more anticipation about the event. Apart from the hope that I might get an award I was also interested in meeting more people in the beer writing world, and of course trying the expert's choices on food and beer matching. I'd heard people raving about the dinner as well as one or two disgruntled noises from other quarters. I like to remain open minded about things, and anyway I think I was still in the awe struck mode of being among stars of the beer world. I felt quite a bit of excitement, and I was trying to nonchalantly keep that under wraps. Surprisingly, I still had a good appetite and tucked into the canapés with delight and polished off a couple of beers, which helped calm the inner nerves a little.

After finding our table, we sat down with childish anticipation for the promised culinary excellence and beer pairing to die for. But first Adrian and Tim grilled the Chef Christian Honor on the presented menu, well, perhaps he was just lightly poached. A nice little introduction which was neatly put together. It would be good to think that the stick in the mud traditionalists got the point; even if they didn't agree with the choices, it's a little bit like art; in the eye of the beholder. Moreover, the efforts by the organisers were not done over a few pints on the back of torn up beer mats, no, lots of thought has gone on here.

The first course was an interestingly presented clam chowder. The soup was tasty enough but on the rather extensive flat rim of the bowl was a croquet topped with caviar, a mussel and a pea sprout planted upright. Paired with Meantime Pilsner, which I got to try before the soup arrived, and found to be a totally agreeable beer. The refreshing and bitter hoppy beer worked well with the creamy soup.

Next there was the smoked venison filled with goats cheese on top of a fig and apple juice terrine. This was served with Duchesse De Bourgogne. This beer is already a beer I like. I love goats cheese, venison, things that are smoked, figs and apples. What could go wrong? Absolutely nothing. This was heaven and the best course for me. It's difficult to improve on the description on the menu, so I won't. The food was very well executed and the beer matched like a dream.

The Rabbit matched with Ringwood Old Thumper caused a stir. Most on our table didn't like the beer match. It didn't help that the first aroma I got from the beer was citrus urinal blocks, but bear with me. The Rabbit was actually cooked quite well. Some complained it was dry but in fact rabbit is an extremely lean meat. When I cook rabbit I use a stuffing that has a little bit of pork fat in it to offset this. I enjoyed Christians execution of this dish. Towards the end of the course I tried the beer again. I felt that after breathing for a few minutes and loosing a little carbonation I got estery notes which I found agreeable.

As the Fullers Vintage 2005 and Camembert were being served Zak decided time was running out and the awards should be announced. That was it, no chance to really savour this one. Nerves started to set in. I had promised to twitter the results so I had to get my BlackBerry out. A spoon full of cheese and a mouth full of beer. Nice, but the taste and smell senses were overtaken by anticipation. Brewer of the Year, Travel Bursary, Beer and Food Writing. I twittered them all trying to keep ahead by typing in the title while Zak was giving his speech and only having to copy down the details of the name off the helpful power point slide, but even then I know I spelt at least one persons name wrong.

New Media Awards Runner up.. oh shit, this is my gig. Take my mind off it by typing the title into twitter.

Now, I'd gone to the event very much telling myself that I probably wouldn't win anything. There was someone deep inside that was desperate for a prize. My concious self kept telling him to STFU. I knew that if I didn't get something I'd be disappointed, and I knew that was likely, so I'm working out how to look happy about getting nothing.

Zak started to read out the introduction and the questions about what the category was about, blogs? Video tastings? I forget exactly what he was saying "get to the bloody point Zak" I thought, still, I try to keep calm and detached. But the following words, kindly sent to me by Zak, still fill me with emotion;

"The judges felt very strongly that along with the quality of the writing, there should be some further attempt to engage with the online community - either through inviting people to contribute to their blog by asking questions of the reader, or by providing a unique point of view that perhaps cannot be accessed through any other channel.

There are many honourable mentions here, but quality and consistency also play a part. Given all of this, we are happy to announce that the runner-up in the Brains SA New Media category, for his blog about the trials and tribulations of running a pub in the remotest reaches of Cumbria, is Dave Bailey"

During this speech there was the full range of over confident certainty right through to complete self doubt and back again, several times. Additionally there was a peculiar part of me not wanting this one because then I can't get the next, arguing with the sensible one who is saying "don't be daft, you'll be lucky to get this". At some point in time Ann said out loud "It's you" before Zak said my name.

I guess I'd better fill in the tweet when I get back from the stage then. If the truth be told I was having difficulty not smiling some sort of bizarre, disbelieving smile whilst at the same time making sure I was portraying just how pleased I was.

I got my cheque and returned to my seat. I continued to tweet the results. Mark Dredge beat me and Pete Brown, of course, got the Beer Writer of the year. For what it's worth he must have tweeted the fact before he went for the stage. I'd already filled it in and just hit "send" when it was confirmed, that's where my money was. My cheese didn't get finished. Neither did my chocolate pudding. I did have quite a lot of the Fullers Vintage and the Flying Dog Gonzo Imperial Porter. I don't care whether it's innovative to put C hops in a stout or not, I liked this and I imagine it goes well with the chocolate and the rest of the palaver in the cake. I had gone beyond caring about the food, I'd done it, I'd got an award. The beer was a friend of mine though, I like beer, very much and that night I loved it more than anything.

I don't think I can state just how much I enjoyed the evening. No, I don't think it was just because I got the result I wanted. I'd go again just for the food and beer. I'd go again just for the company and the chance to meet more people of like minded views, or perhaps even with different views, but who care about beer and breweries and the like.

I wonder if the people who organised the dinner got the thanks they deserve; Adrian Tierney-Jones, Tim Hampson and Mark Dorber? I wonder if the traditionalists know how much effort goes into making the food created by Christian Honor? I wonder if anybody thanked Zak Avery and his team of judges?

I think a great deal of effort went into a superb evening. I'm grateful, I'll look forward to next year and I'll try very hard not to be disappointed if I don't win anything next time.

What next?

Of course, over the next week I need to write up my interesting trip to London and all the excitement that this country lad had in the big bad city. First though, I want to consider where this beer writing nonsense is going for me over the next year or so.

I'm the one on the right ->

I could plan to win Beer Writer of the Year in 2012. I could have chosen 2011 but our brilliant Mark Dredge has already thrown down the gauntlet on that one. They say the secret of being successful is knowing which fight to pick and this one I'll concede right now. But I guess that providing I have work good enough to enter I'll still have a go. Despite the award being important, it doesn't pay the bills and for this reason, as well as perhaps some others, my writing needs to concentrate in other areas.

When I first started talking about my entry to the British Guild of Beer Writers annual awards it must have seemed to some that I was being self-indulgent. Perhaps there is a little bit of truth in this. However, I justify my honest excitement and subsequent pride with a more important overview which is of course, a concern for beer and pubs. After all, this is broadly how I make my living. Beer writing is nothing more than an interesting extension bringing little in the way of tangible returns. Indeed, my prize money only just about covered my trip to London, although I would have still gone even if I had no chance of winning, that's not the point.

I always have an eye on the money, although this is in conflict with my principles, which run far too deep. This conflict gets me into trouble with both myself and others close to me far too often. Customers can sometimes get embroiled in that mêlée of opposing desires too. Entering and winning a prize has come at quite a cost, besides the man-hours and distractions to my core business there is the wearing of the patience of my partner and family. I have to find a reason to do this which is more than just winning a prize that doesn't cover the overall costs. I have to spend the next year or two turning this into a paying concern and it would seem that beer writing by itself is not the way to go.

Don't get me wrong, I understand and appreciate the intangible benefits. Not least of which is the increased traffic to my pub's website. Well over 50% of my trade comes via that route and without it my business would not be viable. My blog tells people what we are about, what we do, what we stand for. It helps to prevent people coming to us and being disappointed and it also helps to direct the type of people to us that appreciate what we do. Moreover, I've had many people come to my pub as a direct result of my blog, I've made many good friends and there are less obvious business benefits gained through these friendships for which I'm very grateful.

Despite this I'm not sure the time spent at the keyboard is entirely commensurate with these benefits. I’m interested in knowing how to maximise reward and I suspect I'm not going to do this alone. This is my ulterior motive for talking about the awards, not because I think they are important, although of course they are, but more because I want to make them a little more important to other people. Despite beer being still the most popular drink of the British drinker, beer writers don't get the kudos which I believe we deserve. Wine, for instance, has several notable celebrities who further its quality appeal; Oz Clarke for instance, to name just one. I know Pete Brown and Roger Protz have made T.V. appearances, but we have nobody in the Guild who makes it as a household minor celebrity (OK, unfair to Oz Clarke, who does happen to be a Guild Member).

I want to make the work of the members of the Guild more noticed. Sure, by doing that my own notoriety will be boosted a little, but as a small fish amongst better writers I'm unlikely to reach great heights, but you never know. More important to me is to improve the overall kudos of beer as a quality drink. For far too long beer has been seen as "dirty". The drink of drunken chauvinistic rugby players and yobs that vomit on the street, piss in shop doorways and cause whole town centres to be no-go areas. What we all know is that beer is not the cause of this but the attitude of the drinkers and volume producers. Beer is no more responsible than, say, white rum.

I'd like to see Pete Brown on the T.V. more often. Why can't we have a T.V. show that includes a weekly beer choice? Perhaps Saturday Morning Kitchen could feature a few interesting beers. I want to get involved with the Guild in putting together a stronger pitch at the T.V. companies to get beer into their food and drink programs. I’d like to see this done collectively as a Guild rather than each member pitching their own ideas; the total greater than the sum of the parts and all that.

Returning to the problem of money; there were 150 or so people at the dinner on Thursday evening, many actual beer writers and some people from the beer industry. The prize money and some of the beers were given by breweries by way of thanks to the Guild Members. However, in an industry that is worth many millions of pounds I think the prize money is small thanks. Why is this? Well, for a start most beer writers have little time for the output of the vast majority of the industry. Only a small proportion of the revenue from the industry is the "craft" sector. The rest of the industry couldn't care a great lot about beer writers, who tend to only talk about artisan beers. For this reason we are out on a limb.

I want to look at how we can encourage more of the industry to concentrate on brand enhancement. During my recent visit to Fullers it was clear that this is a big part of how they remain focussed on providing a bridge between what some beer enthusiasts see as mass produced uninteresting beer like London Pride and much more interesting beers like Fullers Vintage and Golden Pride. I will be writing a large post on Fullers, partly because I owe the brewery at least for their hospitality but moreover because there are plenty of good things they do there that are often overlooked by the hardcore beer geeks. Even Coors are maintaining this brand enhancement with the White Shield brewery. These things are more than just nice little gestures; they deserve great recognition irrespective of the size of the organisation behind the brewery.

We have to remember that many of the smaller breweries which we love so much have small marketing budgets. Many beer writers are now writing blogs and in doing so are providing free marketing for these breweries. This is good, but it doesn’t pay for the man hours of time spent writing. Such writers perhaps don’t want anything in return, and the ever growing number of quality bloggers is good for beer in general. For me, I do feel I need to work out how to pay the bills. I do get some discretionary exchanges and I’m very grateful for that when it occurs. It is however insufficient to enable even the beer writers that are better than me to make a living out of the job. Some breweries, I am starting to think, work us beer writers very well indeed and give back almost nothing in return. Perhaps they might think a little bit about that.

Beer writers and the beer industry have to work hand in hand. Beer writers love interesting quality beers. When presented with them we like them and often write about them. Sometimes we might disagree about what is good and what is pushing the boundaries too far, but generally we’ll talk about them. If as writers, we want to get something out of the industry, we have to put something useful in as well. To that end I have some ideas that I want to follow up and so here I present, for want of a better word, my manifesto for the next year.

One thing the artisan beer world in this country has to sort out is consistency of the product in the glass. It really can let the side down. The brewer has to make consistently good beer. This is of course different to a consistent but boring product. We expect some variations in a quality beer. If it is made from malted barley and whole cone hops there is always going to be some seasonal and gyle variations and we forgive that. We do however expect unwanted flavours to be controlled, for instance DMS, dactyl and phenols are very easy to control if brewers understand their causes. Despite having a poor palate for these things I have started to notice these problem flavours more and more. Simple training of brewers at the microbrewery level needs to be considered. As beer writers I believe we can gently encourage newer smaller breweries to improve their products by reinforcing the various avenues available for training and information. There is a great deal of false information in the microbrewery world about how to make good beer, lots of myths that really could do with being tackled.

Of course, the other key to a good glass of beer is how it is looked after in the pub. In this we have the biggest myth of them all. We consider cask beer to be the only quality beer in the UK. Increasingly, I become convinced this is a little bit of a misnomer. Cask beer can indeed be a very high quality product and one that I love when it is done right. It can however be a complete disaster simply because it is not understood by the pub. I want to work to improve methods for serving cask beer reliably in good condition but further I want to make keg beer more respectable amongst beer fans. I don't want to do this to undermine cask but more to explore where there is a missing link in the whole of the industry. I believe that there is a missing market for draft beer; in the restaurant market for instance. This is starting to be filled with craft bottled beers but there is a chance for quality craft keg beer to make in-roads. I want to help explore how this can be nurtured and encouraged by breweries from the smallest to the biggest, it isn't rocket science.

More immediately for me I have one book proposal in early stages of acceptance with a publisher. I have another longer term project which I need to focus on honing some detail on the proposal. I have also been independently invited to contribute to another book. The really nice thing is that all this was before I won my award, so hopefully things are looking up.

Barley Wine Number Two

OK, here it is, the second instalment of the barley wine seminar. Excuses like having to work in the kitchen now out of the way I realise that there is another hindrance to me relating the proceedings of the second half of the event; that of the beer and crack being good so my note taking seems to have faded. It normally does once I start drinking beer, it's more the social aspect of it rather than the drunken effect, and I'm sticking to that story. Drinking is a social activity after all.

We tasted barley wines with cheeses. I remember the cheeses clearly, mature Cheddar, Stilton and Brie, but forget which beers were paired with them. I'm considering self flagellation by way of punishment for this serious lapse of diligence. I can however remember the effects of this food and beer matching session and there was a different beer presented to match each cheese.

Mature Cheddar with it's nice bite works well with a moderately bitter beer however the one we had was slightly overpowered by the Cheddar. Still, the creaminess of the cheese worked well with the toffee caramel flavours in the beer.

Moving to the Stilton clearly a more powerful hop presence was needed and in this case I felt we had a good choice of beer. I like Stilton and there is a chance that my perception is coloured here, but the experience worked well.

Finally, the creamy Brie works fantastically with a more malty caramel beer. Brie could so easily be overpowered by a beer with too much hop presence, but this one was perfect. I like Brie as well - hang on, what am I talking about? I like cheese, period.

Of course the dried fruits, big body and powerful liqueur flavours present in all the beers help the cheese and indeed I suspect would with a number of other foods. The overall experience is one of the best beer and food matchings I've ever enjoyed and much better than the one from the Tate Sommelier I experienced about a year ago. Perhaps as a guild we could do more to promote good beer and food pairings.

There were many barley wines to try and Adrian Tierney-Jones lists them in his blog. I'm really not one to give a great list of beers and critique each one. Every single beer was fantastic and the danger for any contender would be that the overall quality was so high that everyday fantastic might loose out to sublime. Several had vintages and in particular the 1999 Fuller Vintage Ale stood out as something special, not just because the beer is good but because of the overall ethos that goes along with it. I had tried the 2009 at the GBBF and the fresh compared to the aged was very interesting indeed. I smuggled a bottle home which currently has an imaginary "drink me" label tempting me every day. Ann particularly liked the Harveys Elizabethan Ale. Big Foot was too hoppy to be a barley wine in my view, but that's the way the Americans do things. Conversely Lovibonds Wheat Wine would be great with some more hops.

So, things starting to get a little more relaxed and with the danger of memory failure we sat down again to listen to the second batch of speakers. Barry Pepper kicked off with a light after dinner style piece on Yorkshire Stingo, which it turns out I had difficulty pronouncing correctly. I blame the lack of a Yorkshire accent rather than any effect from the beers.

Steve Gibbs of Durham Brewery gave a talk on the micro brewers perspective of making barley wine. As a micro brewer myself I felt it was all obvious. That must mean he was telling the truth but it does leave difficulties in me finding the surprising revelation to pass on.

Jeff Rosenmeier gave a very informative talk on his Wheat Wine, which I mentioned needed more hops, but he himself had already come to this conclusion. Mash hopping is used, rare in this country but useful in this beer due to the high level of wheat malt. Wheat mashes tend to be very sticky and can result in a stuck sparge. Hops in the mash help to break up the malt and replace the lack of barley husks. Honey is used in the beer's production and there was some question about when to add the honey. In the boil the honey can loose much of the aromatics that are the very point of using honey. The problem is that honey is not sterile. The high sugar content stops any bacteria from growing when honey is stored, which is why it can keep for years, but adding it to wort without any boiling might encourage these bacteria to multiply once in the ideal growing medium of fermenting beer. Jeff puts the honey in at the end of the boil, at flame out. However, he is considering putting it in after cooling and hoping the yeast will compete and so play to the numbers game of brewing microbiology. Honey in beer is a controversial one. I like mead and so I liked this. If you don't like honey then you'd be disappointed.

Jeff talked about waxing the bottle top. This has been proven to help ageing in beers. As a secondary seal it is used to prevent oxygen getting at the beer and maintain condition. It's even possible, apparently, to hear a hiss as the wax is broken proving that it does really have an effect. It is interesting that the example bottle of a very old beer indeed was also waxed. Steve Wellington had brought along one of only a few bottles left of Ratcliff ale. Pete Brown was lucky enough to try some just before his epic journey to India. Apparently we were not worthy enough to try it, but there is an excellent description of the ceremony surrounding the opening of the bottle and the flavours encountered in Pete's book Three Sheets to the Wind pp73-74.

Which I hope brings me on neatly to Pete's little bit of the day; Selling barley wine. Of course most people who have read Pete's books will know his roots lie firmly in marketing. His words don't need to be repeated here as he has kindly copied them onto his own blog. They make tons of sense to me. The key thing is that we have to rethink beer when we get to the premium market. Barley wine and other strong beers like double imperial stouts, imperial IPAs and the like deserve a different approach. Packaging and glassware are part of that.

A key point though is that it was stated "Drinking is about ritual", and the example came back of the opening of Ratcliffs ale in Pete's book and how everybody was transfixed around this very special bottle. Part of the ritual of removing the wax on a corked bottle gives another reason to consider this packaging addition, further adding to the ritual of drinking. Anyway, just read Pete's blog, he makes more sense than me.

The floor was open for questions and comments. Earlier I had heard a comment from somebody that questioned the place of barley wine. Claiming to really like the beers we were trying the gentleman also declared "I would never go to the pub and drink this". I asked myself why not? We will drink wine and whisky and gin and vodka and rum and port but not barley wine. No, because we are stuck in the thought that beer needs to be between 3.5% and 4.5% and served in pints, anything else is just stupid, apparently. I really feel that we should consider taking a leaf out of the Belgians book on this one. Different styles of beer deserve different glasses and different measures. The more that I explore the premium beer world the more I realise that we are missing out on promoting them due to blinkered, dare I say it, flat earth approach.

Melissa Cole sparked controversy by having a dig at brewers for only using technical descriptions for the flavours in beers. Hoppy, malty and estery don't really inspire the lay person. An irritated retort ensued from somebody seemly insulted but I'd have to agree that we could be more descriptive rather than technical with our beer tasting notes.

Finally free reign was given to the marvellous array of beers to try. I was expecting great things and was sure I would enjoy the experience. Whilst I loved them all there were some that were simply outstanding. I opened my first post claiming that barley wine was for old women. That seems to be the perception but I'd say this is a style that could be modernised, not by way of changing the style, it stands as a robust drink in it's own right, but it's crying out to be made trendy and I've a feeling we're on the cusp of it. It also seems that the style is worthy of the maturation fine wine receives. If a well made beer can still be drinkable after 140 years then perhaps we can consider expanding on Fullers excellent idea of vintage ale and give beer it's much needed step up out of the mass media gutter. Maybe beer might be the drink of the nation, the drink that cuts across classes, but we're still in danger of alienating greatness with a form of inverted snobbery that still clings to the drinking classes.

Sadly the coach was ready to leave bound back for Sheffield and the promise of a pint. I was strangely looking forward to sinking a regular 18oz plus proper northern head. Unfortunately, the few that were left wanted to visit several pubs so halves were in order. Mind you, I'm glad we did get to a few, Sheffield is looking good for a beery trip in the future.

I can't finish this post without a mention of the hotel we stayed in that night. The Hillsborough Hotel is a brew hotel, there are not many in the country and of course every single one is special. This one is no exception, or perhaps it is, seeing as it is exceptional. Stu is a top brewer and is not afraid to push the boundaries a little. His Unpronounceable IPA at 7% Indian Pale Ale 7.2% brewed with Pete Brown¹ was on tap "Are you sure you want a pint? Do you know how strong it is?" I was asked. I didn't care, I was getting desperate to get my hands around a proper one, yeah, I'm disagreeing with every thing I've said above but just sometimes only a pint will do. We were brought a special jug of Ring of Fire from the cellar, newly tapped and "dry chillied". I've never had chilli beer and was not quite sure whether I would like it. A nice fresh chilli nose that threatens a bite that will blow your mind, I expect this comes from the whole chillies in the cask, but it turns out that it's bouquet is worse than it's bite with this beer working surprisingly well. I think I had around a pint of the chilli beer as well, which was probably good going after the day I'd just had. Eventually I found my bed, contented after a thoroughly enjoyable day.

A smashing breakfast next morning was followed by a grand tour of The Hillsborough Cellars, which is where the Crown Brewery lives. I was in a rush because I'd left my BlackBerry charger at home and I wanted to find a shop that could sell me a new one. Unfortunately in my rush I left my bottles of Celebration Ale behind, which Stu had kindly procured for me. Sadly that means I'll have to visit the Hillsborough again and probably be tempted into another beer exploration around the steel city of Sheffield. Ann thinks I left them deliberately so that I'd have to go back - as if.

I think I've drivelled on a little too long already about barley wine; Time to move on - onward to the great capital of our little island. Time for more beery exploration to engage in and a treat in first class on the train to get there. Interestingly I ended up thinking that I'd rather travel standard class on a Virgin Pendalino as the ride is so much smoother, the East Midlands Trains rattle and tilt terribly, now I know why it's only £6 more for first class.

Incidentally, my search for a charger turned out to be a frustrating but eventually successful escapade. It was in a Virgin shop that I managed to find my phone charger, the Branson empire managed to regain a little kudos with me again after a complete and utter fiasco trying to buy a parking ticket at Oxenholme.

Next I need to cover an event hosted by Lagers Of the British Isles. Yes, that's right, I had an evening of lager drinking. Have my beer explorations found me a lager I like? You'll just have to wait until the next post.

Meanwhile, there is also a post on The Beer Justice blog about the event, in case I haven't bored you quite enough.

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¹You see, this is what happens if you try and cram too much beer and blogging into too few days, the accuracy starts to deteriorate.....see blog comments.

Barley Wine Number One

Barley Wine, it's something of an old ladies drink. Nobody really gives it much thought these days. Often at beer festivals something turns up that is strong enough for people to declare it as a barley wine, simply on the grounds that it is too strong to be beer. I have Tokyo* on sale in my pub and it's easiest to sell by using the description of barley wine, after all, we can understand the concept of a strong fruity drink when related to the fruit of the vine¹. Do we really understand the difference between barley wine, old ale and intergalactic fantastic stout?

On Monday this week I attended the British Guild of Beer Writers barley wine seminar as the start of a beer exploration week. Perhaps I would understand barley wine better.

Arriving at Sheffield station ahead of schedule I met up with guild members and was introduced to the head brewer of a slightly bigger brewery. It's nice to be recognised as "Woolpack Dave" by key people in the brewing industry, and more so by their interest in the beer blogging world. People in the industry do read beer blogs, at least some do, and they like the information it gives them about grass root beer drinkers and their thoughts. The point that came through was that it is the comments as much as the posts themselves that can be most illuminating. A lesson for me to appreciate those who comment but with whom I might not agree. Opinion, after all, is just opinion.

More people arrived and we had a quick tour of an interesting project for a brewery tap of our hosts, Thornbridge. In 1904, or there about, a building was erected as part of the station. The waiting room included a bar with echoes of a disappearing Victorian splendour, the bar front long since destroyed but the back bar, dusty and neglected, threatened to once again shine through with polished mahogany and large shiny mirrors. Apparently the new bar front is being manufactured elsewhere. The 1350 bottle beer range should cap off for an interesting bar and a fantastic beer gateway for what turns out to be a great beer city.

From here to the delightful setting of Thornbridge Hall for the seminar. Many people serious about the subject of beer in all its various forms, were in attendance to try and "make sense of barley wine". Although the subject makes sense to me now, I'm not sure as a writer, brewer or beer drinker, I can communicate that sense as well as I'd like to. Part of the reason is perhaps because the subject was covered in good depth and with great interest, but in a polite and democratic way that failed to reach any firm conclusions. For me this adds to the charm of the event, but might detract from it's usefulness to the greater beer world. Here I will try my best to single out the key important things I learnt, but suffice to say this is probably scratching the surface of the subject.

The style that is barley wine seems a little confused. Our first speaker, Mark Dorber, did an excellent job of helping to focus on the style. The first point of course is the very question of style itself. There are a few organisations² who try to define style, and there are often discrepancies between these definitions. The inevitable arguments about what is "true to style" are bound to ensue. As Mark pointed out "beer does not make itself" and style guidelines are useful for brewers as a spring board for progression and a hook to help define a product. The arguments about what style a beer actually is might never go away and frankly is a superfluous distraction. Mark did help us to understand the basis for this style, and therefore helps me to further develop what I think is an under developed drink, from a commercial point of view.

An exploration of the various attributes ensued; There is little point trying to sumerise what Mark said, because he's done it so well himself, so I will quote verbatium his own summary from the powerpoint presentation.

Amber to deep copper in colour

Intense, estery fruity aromas and higher alcohols present – big brassy hop aromas on US inspired beers - more restrained in UK

Full-bodied - 8.5-12% abv, monuments to pale malt and single barley varieties with firm, balancing bitterness in UK

Residual sweetness capable of attenuation during months/years of maturation in oak cask (rum, bourbon etc) or bottle

Liquorous, fortified vinous, silky texture and smooth mouthfeel

UK barley wines will have no tannins from grain and in the past tended to use low alpha noble hops – now changing

US barley wines have high alpha primary hop flavours and tannins in youth – mellowing with age

Aftertaste should not be characterised by Burtonising mineral salt dryness – key textural contrast with Imperial IPAs

A key interest for me was the astringency caused by tannins from the grain. Considered by some as a fault in beer but it's presence in grape wine, if carefully controlled, can act as an antioxidant and enhance it's maturation process. Wines with higher astringencies when young are harsh and unpleasant but mature better. I am keen to understand how this could effect barley wine during maturation and indeed if it could be controlled to good effect to produce outstanding matured strong beer.

John Keeling, head brewer at Fullers talked about parti-gyle beer. Apparently much of the beer produced by Fullers is made this way. As the sparge progresses, the wort is diverted into different coppers to produce the various production strength beers. One copper would be at 1080 and one at 1020. The cooled worts then being blended into the fermenter to produce the final products. An interesting advantage is that alpha acids polymerise better in the copper at lower gravity giving a better hop utilisation. John was keen to point out that this is not high gravity brewing, which is a different concept again, with parti-gyle, beer fermentation occurs at product gravity.

Brewing in this way enables a strong wort to be used for barley wine, such as Golden Pride and Fullers Vintage while still utilising the second runnings, blended with some of the first for the main stream ales.

Of course the unique characteristic of Fullers yeast was mentioned. A Golden Pride brew sheet was shown from 1966 where the yeast was on it's 926th generation. It does make me wonder how we can be sure the yeast was the same as it was nearly 1000 generations earlier, but of course that's the point; yeast evolves and is changed by the environment it lives in. Equally the ingredients of beer have to be varied as the yield from the grain changes or the alpha acid content of the hops changes. It is the job of the experienced brewer to adjust quantities and even possibly varieties to acheve a consistant result. "Marketing and management think that to get consistent beer you do the same thing every time" but John, at least I think it was John rather than the next speaker as my notes get confused here, asserts it is all about taste and experience. There, that makes these guys craft brewers in my view.

Despite the attraction of traditional techniques the use of the old square fermenters often don't produce good results. It was pointed out that the use of newer cylindrical-conical fermenters often increase the chances of winning CAMRA awards. Clearly good beer and traditional methods don't always go together. Just because this form of vessel is used to make mass produced poor quality lager does not mean it will make poor beer generally.

The next speaker was Steve Wellington of the White Shield brewery, the guy who looks after the "Old Lady" and so keeping Coors just about acceptable. He was keen to point out the need for saying hello to such an austere and aged old brewhouse as if you forget, you are sure to have a bad brew day. Pete Brown talks about this brewery in his book Three Sheets to the Wind, so it was nice to hear a little more about it.

Here he talked about what I understand to be Bass No1 but I'm left a little confused about it's status. Coors seem to own the brewery that Bass No1 was brewed on but AB InBev own the Bass brand. Still, Steve seems to know an awful lot about how it could be brewed, although my understand is that it is not currently being made. Maybe this seminar will produce a new interest in barley wine and the White Shield brewery will once again make barley wine.

The key notable point was the difficulty of getting more than around 1060 - 1070 wort from all grain mash methods. Bass N01 was sparged to produce this gravity and then boiled to reduce the volume and concentrate the sugars. The boiled wort would have an S.G. of 1105 and take many hours. Often done overnight the brewer would creep back into the brewery next morning, without forgetting to say hello, and hope there wasn't just black tar in the bottom of the copper. A dark concentrate that originally contained no coloured malts is the result. 6 brewery barrels, or close to 1000 litres, is reduced to half of that volume.

Conversions of sugars into other compounds colour the wort and no doubt add to the final characteristics of the product. With a hop loading 6 times what you'd expect compared to an ordinary beer due to the low uptake of hop flavours the end result is a glorious rich dark malty beverage with just enough hopping to offset the sweetness.

To round off the first session Steve Grossman of Sierra Nevada explained a little about the production of Big Foot which is their 9.6% ABV barley wine. It is interesting in the craft beer scene in America how big and bold is favoured. Extremes of flavours and alcohol marks out the differences more than considerations of cask against keg or authenticity to anything previous. Consequently their barley wine is also very hoppy and bitter.

If you've got this far in reading you've done well. It was an interesting day and I've only covered about half of the proceedings. I could have written more detail so far, but even more of you would have got bored. I haven't even covered the most interesting things for me, which is the cultural issues surrounding stronger beers. Hopefully in my next post I'll cover what some of the other speakers say and hint at where the British beer industry and pubs alike could gain from barley wine.

If you want more information on the barley wine seminar then Malt Worms and Beer Justice have also covered the event.

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¹The name wine of course is linked to vine, the plant type that grows the fruit used to produce the regular vintners beverage. In French this link is much more obvious by their name of vin. Of course everybody already knows this, so this foot note is pointless.

²Mark uses The Brewers Association and The Beer Judge Program as examples of barley wine style descriptions. The CAMRA descriptions are also available but not mentioned. There seemed to be some irritation towards CAMRA's attitude to styles, which I'll confess I didn't quite grasp.

Cutting Overheads

One of the things that has helped our financial performance this year has been a careful control of our overheads. Heating and lighting are very high here and I suspect the same is true of many pubs. Another high expenditure item are staff hours. Resisting the temptation to roster staff just in case it gets busy can waste money. Clearly the down side of this is that it might get busy and then there are insufficient staff to provide a satisfactory level of quality service.

Now that October is here our weekday trade has dropped to a level where the gross profit¹ is less than the wages bill. There are some softer benefits to the business in having the bar open, most important to that is manning the phone to take room bookings. However, even that is dying off now.

Ann and I are going away for a few days next week. We've had the dilemma of working out how to organise the various difficulties of having the place open and paying staff to serve a low number of people. We've taken the rather controversial decision to close the place. We feel that the cost of being open combined with the worry of something going wrong when we are hundreds of miles away isn't justifiable for the very low level of revenue we would gain. We'll be open again next weekend, when it'll be a little busier.

Tomorrow the British Guild of Beer Writers will be holding a seminar on barley wine, that should be interesting. Tomorrow night we are staying at The Hillsborough Hotel in Sheffield where it is rumoured there will be a hop-monster IPA on sale, brewed with the help of Pete Brown. I believe there will be various beer writers staying there as well. Tuesday morning Ann will pour me onto a train bound for London, I just hope she won't expect too much intelligent conversation during the journey.

We had planned on going to a trade show in Earls Court, The Restaurant Show. This is normally a good ideas mine for our own food operation. However, in the last couple of weeks I've had various invites to beer related events that coincide with us being in the metropolis, it would be rude to turn them down. It's going to be tough on my liver, me thinks. Ann might have to go to the show by herself and trust me with beer. Can I trust her let loose with the cheque book?

The trip should generate some interesting blog topics I hope. I probably won't get time to write anything whilst we're away, and I'm even pondering the advantage of carrying our old heavy slow lap-top with us. I do hope to schedule a blog for auto publishing tomorrow and there is good reason for that, as the reader will find out, but you might not hear much from me for a few days.

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¹Gross profit (G.P.) is simply the percentage of the selling price after the supply price of the product is deducted. Calculation is done on the exclusive VAT values. For instance, if a product is sold at £1.15, the exclusive VAT selling price is £1. If the product cost the publican 80p to buy then the G.P. is 20%.

The Meaning of Beer

I've changed the header in my blog, I hope you like it. I'm attempting to rationalise why I write this blog, focused by the upcoming deadline for the British Guild of Beer Writers¹ Annual Awards. Apparently, at least one blogger has been "prepping" for it. "Oh" I thought "Better do some myself". The problem is, apart from looking through some past posts and being embarrassed about appalling punctuation errors and the like, the only thing I've done so far is rewrite the header. Better get my act together. Luckily my transatlantic advisory service has come up with a short-list of good posts, thanks Ted. This one no doubt will be confined to the "flirting with drivel" category.

Readers may question why I'm setting myself up for a fall. Clearly there are many good beer writers out there and my chances of winning anything are slim, but I live in hope. The point is that the Guild's purpose is "To improve standards of beer writing and extend the public knowledge of beer." There are many members of the Guild working hard to achieve this, but I feel one of the key attributes of the Guild which could benefit from further exposure is the Guild's awards. If I can stimulate a little bit of anticipation ahead of the announcement on the 3rd December then so much the better. Hopefully, adding a little to the profile of beer writing and so improving the profile of beer at the same time, well that's the theory anyway.

All this has made me wonder why we like beer. This seems to be the natural progression of Marks question which hinges, for me, around the need for alcohol in drinks. We would not drink beer if it did not contain alcohol, and indeed I'm curious about the value of a 1.1% beer². Why drink something that is little more than hop flavoured water fizzed up? Beer, and every other socialising drink needs alcohol, it's part of it's function. Alcohol free beer? A bit like dehydrated water, no point. I commented on Mark's post about the issue of alcohol, and why it is so important. I've got little more to add.

Meanwhile Tandleman has been awarded the honour of announcing this months Wikio wine and beer blog rankings. There are some movers for sure, some new entries and for me a nice jump of 6 places. Chuffed? you bet. But as Tandleman points out, most of the blogs in top of the category are beer, and yet it's called the wine and beer rankings. Something is not right.

Wikio ranks partly by cross linking of blogs. I'm helping those bloggers whom I've linked to here in improving or maintaining their next months ratings. Hopefully there might also be some less easy to define benefits in the friendliness I'm trying to promote. This brings me to my main point. Beer is mainly about friendliness. Having a pint³ is more than just drinking, it's about socialising. There may well be some strange people about in the beer world but generally we're all very sociable people. We are drawn together by more than just a malty, hoppy, perhaps a little fizzy alcoholic beverage. It's a social drink that is just right for promoting the best convivial environment we could wish for.

It's been said before, but it certainly seems that beer bloggers, like beer drinkers, are much more sociable people than the wine buffs. Why else would we support each others blogs? Who are the sad sacks and losers again?

I haven't managed to find the meaning of beer, what really is it that makes the beer world revolve? I've read Three Sheets to the Wind by Pete Brown and still can't answer the question, despite the book being about the author's own quest to answer the same query. Why should a liquor made from the extract of malted barley be so important? Why is the interest in a more diverse range of beers becoming a growing trend in a climate of decline? Why does beer gel people more than any other drink? And, in the interests of trying to tie this disjointed article into some sort of coherence, why is there so little positive news in the main stream press about beer when it is such an important part of our culture?

The alcohol is part of that; it's positive socialising benefits negated by its minority negative effects on society attacked as an easy chink in our armour. But there is far more to it than just the intoxicating effect, there is something extra to beer that cuts through social divides where wine, whisky, gin or rum can't. So it continues to frustrate me that main stream journalism fails to cover the huge amount of good news around in the beer world, we as beer writers have a responsibility to try and change that if we can.

The Guild Awards are part of that, a major event in the Beer Writers diary. If my writing about the Awards risks my chances by more potential candidates⁴ entering then it is worth it. If I also raise maybe only by a small degree, the profile of the Awards. After all, I'd prefer to enter and loose a worthy competition than scoop awards at something meaningless.

If beer means anything to you as a reader, take an interest in the Guild Awards and watch my twitter account on the 3rd December. Assuming I won't be too busy scooping awards, I'll be sulkily twittering about the ones that are.

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¹The Guild can be acronymed to BGBW which could also stand for Beautiful Great Big Women, make of that what you will. I think this observation can be attributed to Barm.

²Now before you all knock me down for even daring to criticise the mighty BrewDog, I think they have done exactly the right thing in releasing the low alcohol beer. I'm just not going to buy it. I would happily review it were Martin and James to send me a sample, but I'm not paying for it. You never know guys, I might even be convinced. Either way, giving the nanny state the finger is excellent.

³Or a half litre, or even 330ml if it's something stronger from a bottle, or a twofer or whatever. I worry about people who have hangups over size.

⁴It is not necessary to be a member of the Guild to enter the awards.

A Piss-up by Beer Writers

GBBF trip post No2

If the best beer writers in the country can't organise a good party, then who can? Monday night saw the 21st Birthday party of the British Guild of Beer Writers. My first real chance to meet up with many people I had heard about and perhaps interacted with on the Internet. Pete Brown gives an excellent report here almost making my post superfluous. But I'll find some words to fill a post, after all, I've got to practice so I too can work up to a 130,000 word¹ book.

A fine party it was indeed, made that way by good beer and good company. If I listed all the people I met I'd be bound to get some wrong, so I'll save myself the embarrassment. With so many new people in little more than 24 hours that I was in London, I soon started to get confused, not unusual, it's true.

Jeff Pickthall, my fellow Cumbrian, had managed to get The Hairy Bikers to come along. With Jeff Bell also there the northern contingent² formed the naughty boys at the back of the room during the speeches. We ended up getting told to stop chatting. The trouble was we couldn't hear the speakers, which was a bit of a shame really, because I gather some good stuff was said. Unfortunately the PA just wasn't set right for Public Address. It did work well for the SIBA band later though.

The beer was interesting. Not quite as exciting in its entirety as the American beers of earlier in the day, but the Harveys' Imperial Extra Double Stout was fantastic. I've never had a beer so opaque, it was so black that even the low sun over the Thames couldn't get it's bright penetrating rays through the liquid. I had a nice picture of the bottle, but on returning home I looked at the pics only to find that a member's female acquaintance was sitting opposite and all I can see in the mid background is the region just above the low cut top³ she was wearing. Honest, I didn't notice at the time, sorry.

I think I was just captivated by the quality of the beer and the joy of being with people, as Pete points out, brought together by beer. It was one of those evenings that you just don't want to end, the crack⁴ was spot on and I stayed longer than I should have done.

This trip was an important chance for me to explore how far I'm going to take this beer writing lark. To do so much further than blogging, we're told, is a toughy. However, It's turning into a passion, a desire to communicate what I know about beer, which it turns out isn't much and there is so much to learn. The beer world is interesting and it's diversity is becoming broader and deeper and there is a future - somewhere - for us beer writers, provided there are people who are prepared to read it. I wanted to hang on to these people for as long as possible, to soak up their combined knowledge before I had to go home. But sadly, I recognised the signals all too easily, as the bar staff signalled less and less subtly that it was Foxtrot Oscar o'clock.

I still hadn't checked into my hotel at this point and the last tube had gone. Jeff P got me to Clapham Junction, from where there should have been a single bus journey to take me to Earls Court. I've never got on with the bus route maps. Which side of the street should I be on and which street? These seemed to be nagging questions. The digestif effect of the stout and stuffed chilli peppers seemed to be kicking off peristalsis causing discomfort as various muscles fought. This doesn't help one to concentrate on sorting out a confusing situation. Being from the country, where a good sense of direction is required, a real map is preferable, rather than some sort of stylised interconnectivity transport node solution that bares little resemblance to reality. I decided to walk, using the A to Z as my comfort blanket, praying for the conclusion of alimentary activity to just wait a little while longer⁵. At 3am I eventually checked into the hotel, got to porcelain with such relief but surprisingly un-drunk and went to bed.

I'd been drinking beers that we're typically 6% and above, but I'd just been having tasters. Free beer all day and I was sober, well, fairly anyway. How was that? I think it's a sharing thing. I had a glass and there were bottles. Later, when it was draft beer, it was in pitchers. We just drank, and talked, and poured a little more into the small glass I had. No pressure. No rounds. No big glass shouting "drink me". Just great beer to enjoy, oh, and top company.

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¹Pete signed my copy of his book, Hops and Glory. In doing so he also disclosed the word count - thanks for the target, although I suspect, like you, I would overshoot somewhat. What's all this "couldn't think of any more" bollocks? Although words come easily, I've got several dictionaries and a thesaurus full of them if I get stuck, it's assembling them in a suitable order I sometimes have problems with. Oh, and thanks Liz for insisting on my full name.

²Sorry Stonch, you're from the North, as well you know, and don't forget it. But, it was nice to see you've got somebody who's able to cope with you, spot on company both.

³No, I'm not sending out copies. I like these people, I'm not going to upset them any more.

⁴Crack is similar to criac in Ireland. In Cumbria it means gossip, news or general conversation. I know in London it means some sort of substance, but us simple country folk don't understand these sort of things.

⁵OK, too much information, but in Cumbria you don't have to walk too far before you can find a convenient wall to hop over. Where do you go at 2am when you are caught short in London? Call yourselves civilised?